Last night, the search for a trunk murderer was underway in "The Hangman Waits"(1947), a documentary-style thriller told from a sensationalist perspective. As the movie opens, a man wearing an overcoat follows a woman home, then silently strangles her. We only see him from behind. The next day, the body is found, which sends the press into a frenzy. The Linotype machines run furiously, newsboys shout the headlines, and I must say (cue Ed Grimley "I must say") that the production of a daily newspaper (as depicted in the film) is a fascinating, ingenious thing. Bring back newspapers! Screw internet news and phony, corporate cable networks.
Anyhow, Skeertlynd Yeeard discovers their first clue, that the murderer had a limp. Then, in the last twenty minutes, after they find their suspect, there's a Hitchcockian suspense segment in which he goes to a church where an organist is rehearsing. Being an organist himself, he asks to give it a try, and then, because the music drives him crazy, he has to murder the church organist, poor guy. So his motive wasn't all about killing women. Something about the organ makes him crazy.
The movie is good in its documentary way, showing how the news business drives all factors: the public panic, which in turn drives the police to solve the case, which makes the killer feel powerful from the publicity, which makes him more daring, which sells more newspapers. But the problem, because the focus is on the press aspect, is that we never find out much about the killer's life or motivations. Almost nil, in fact. The cinematic style makes up for some of that; it's another Butcher's Films film ("they butchered another one!"), and despite my facetious slogan for them, The Butchers are competent British B-movie mavens.
At 55 minutes though, you can't go wrong with "The Hangman Waits", especially since there are 8760 hours in a year, and ya gotta fill 365 of 'em with one hour movies, and I must say (cue Ed Grimley again) that I don't know if I can ever go back to movies longer than 90 minutes, unless I go on a Tarkovsky kick. (Just kidding. I love all kinds of movies at all kinds of lengths. It's just that I don't have the patience to sit through longer ones any more, because I'm preoccupied with other, more important stuff.)
I love 60 minute flicks because they get the job done. Just go boom-boom-boom and give me a movie. I don't have time to mess around. Two Bigs, picture: razor sharp.
In "Delayed Action"(1954), viewed last week, we've got another plot you may have seen before. "Ned Ellison" (Robert Ayers) is suicidal. His wife left him two years ago, taking their daughter with her. Then the wife died, now the daughter can't be located. She's with in-laws somewhere in the English countryside. Ellison can't get a job cause he's an American in England, and he's ready to jump in the Thames. As the movie opens, he's sealing a letter to the coroner, explaining his demise. He then heads to the river, but before he can jump in, two men accost him and knock him cold.
When he comes to, at the house of the man in charge, he's pissed. "Why did you stop me?" "Because I need someone like you, to whom life means nothing. And in fact I have a proposition to make." Ahh, the old "I'll pay you handsomely to swap identities with me, but you'll have to die in the end" plot: "I'm sure you won't mind, because you were going to kill yourself anyway."
Didn't we see something similar in a Roger Corman film? Was it "Premature Burial"? Anyway, this one's more of a TV-type plot, the kind of thing you'd see in an episode of Mission Impossible or Name of the Game, when they're trying to psyche a guy out. Ellison agrees to take the gig, and he's supposed to pose as a businessman who's taken over the identity-swapper's company. The boss is supposed to have gone overseas. He's gradually warming up for the swap by getting a haircut, wearing glasses, and posing as the new underling at his own company, where he now works for Ellison. Later he will fake his death, and if the cops don't catch on, Ellison will be free to go. If it's confusing to you, it confused me ten times worse, because it's underwritten. We never know why the boss is in dutch with the law. Why does he need to switch identities in the first place? He insinuates a few things, and Ellison jumps in whole hog. From there, style takes over from substance, and I use the word style carefully because Robert Ayers acting style very quickly becomes something that sticks in your craw. His voice sounds like someone turned the volume up on the post-production looping. It's too loud compared to the other characters. But more than that, he's using an affected, Suave Guy diction, which sounds like he's deliberately talking off the roof of his mouth and bouncing it through his nose. Sorry, but it's annoying, and his physical reactions to other characters are as herky-jerky as can be. It's worth watching the movie for his unusual performance, even though it will bug you. It's like he's stiffening before your eyes while his voice is swallowing him up. Really weird indeed.
You kind of have to go with the plot: "Yeah, I agree to let you kill me at the end of this bargain, because I was gonna kill myself anyway, and at least now I'll have some money to leave to my daughter whom I can't find."
Somewhere along the way, Ellison (now posing as the rich businessman's substitute) rescues a young lass from a car crash. This comes 100% out of the blue, in order to give him a love interest, which in turn gives him a reason to live, which again in turn makes him want out of the bargain, which makes the bossman angry. If you can hack Robert Ayers' performance, you might find this an interesting movie. You've heard overdubs like the one on his voice when they dub an overly loud New York voice on a physically mismatched Spanish outlaw in a spaghetti western. But with Ayers, they just made the looping too loud, and he does this schtick with his dialogue that's still bugging me. But Two Thumbs Up anyway. The picture is very good. ////
We're also having fun watching Victoria Horne in "Secret Agent X-9", the chapter serial starring Lloyd Bridges that we began a couple of weeks ago. Horne, an actress we'd never previously seen, plays "Nabura", a Japanese dragon lady working as an Axis-powers go-between on the privately owned Shadow Island in the Pacific. She arranges for secret transfers of information and weapons components between Japan and Germany, skirting the Allied naval presence in the area. Horne's performance intrigued me enough to look her up on IMDB, and I was surprised to find out that she was Jack Oakie's wife, and thus lived with him for decades in Oakridge, the Northridge mansion on Devonshire near Reseda Boulevard, that was built and originally owned by Barbara Stanwyck. Reading about Horne, I recalled a conversation I had with a docent at Oakridge, last October when they had an open house. She mentioned Victoria Horne and told me that after Jack Oakie died, Horne continued to live at Oakridge until her own death in 2003, after which the house and property were acquired by USC. The university held on to Oakridge for years, unsure what to do with it, and was about to sell it to a horrible real estate developer (a redundancy), when the City of Los Angeles stepped in, bought it, and preserved it as a historic site. Thank you, Los Angeles. But another thing the docent said that was cool, was that, as an old lady, Victoria Horne was seen once in a while in the Devonshire/Reseda Ralphs supermarket, when it was still in place. She said you could tell Miss Horne by her all-black clothing, complete with gloves and hat, a mysterious figure from Hollywood's (and Northridge's) days of yore, the Old Lady of Oakridge who lived "in that mansion behind the wall on the hill". Check out her performance as Nabura in "Secret Agent X-9" (the 1945 version). She's alluring in a cute-but-evil way. It's cool to have discovered Victoria Horne, who lived at Oakridge for 53 years. We'll have to find more of her movies. ////
And that's all for tonight. I think we're almost all caught up. My blogging music is Happy the Man (debut album), my late night is Handel's Belshazzar Opera. I've had enough rain and cold to last me several lifetimes, and I send you Tons of Love as always.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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